A Word About Cooking With Wine and Spirits

Every kitchen (even yours) should have a bottle of red and white wine in the kitchen cabinet right next to the olive oil, salt and pepper, and all your other spices. Many dishes that we will make on this blog will call for a splash to a cup of it. I have however, had a few of you ask me about making non alcoholic substitutes for certain dishes that I show you.

An important thing we should remember when cooking directions call for wine. The cooking process will evaporate most of the alcohol within a few minutes and by the time your dish is ready, it will all have evaporated. An example of this is the Sauteed Steak and Salad dinner than I showcased recently. What you have left is the flavors in the wine without the alcohol. Those flavors have married with your spices and the butter you used to produce a wonderful rich sauce enhancing the dish. So remember, when cooking with wine, you won't have alcohol remaining.

Not everything we make on this blog with alcohol, however, calls for cooking. A clear example is the first dish we prepared, English Trifle. In this case, all the spirits we used are still there, alcohol and all. I can understand your concern. You want to make the dish but you really don't want to use any alcoholic content and you are asking yourself what else can one use?

Well, understanding your plight, with empathy I began to scour the internet for a site that would give us a chart of substitutes to assist those of you desiring to make these wonderful dishes without using any spirits. Well, I was successful! There is a wonderful site called GourmetSleuth that will give you all the substitutes you will need. The address is:

http://www.gourmetsleuth.com/alcoholsubstitutes.htm

I hope you will find this web site very usedful and that we will continue to make wonderful appetizers, entrees, and desserts together. Remember though, cooking with wine will evaporate all the alcohol, so don't worry. Bon Appetit !